


The Graves Were For The Leaves

by The_Sickfic_Sideblog



Series: Halloween Week 2017 [6]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 11:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12506084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Sickfic_Sideblog/pseuds/The_Sickfic_Sideblog
Summary: After their adventures, the boys revisit some of their favorite places.Major spoilers for the entire Balance Arc.





	The Graves Were For The Leaves

****Taako, Magnus, and Merle always made a point to visit those who helped them along their adventure. It helped the underlying fear that perhaps some memories could be lost again. Sometimes this meant visiting large towns that fought back against The Hunger. Sometimes it meant having tea and macaroons with bugbears.

And sometimes it meant visiting graves.

The tree that sprouted in the middle of Goldcliff wasn’t exactly a grave. The two dryads that had crawled out of it were still up and walking about. But the way the petals bloomed in the middle of the desert, the way the masks sat side by side at the roots of the tree, the way it was right in the center of the city once ransacked by vines, and most of all, the way it was always so still and quiet around the tree - it certainly felt like a grave. Especially in the fall.

The hot desert weather evaporated all the water around the tree and touched each of the leaves to suck the moisture out of them as well. What was once a big luscious tree was now a large dormant stick, waiting for better weathers to come again.

The three Reclaimers sat down at the base of the tree and stayed in silence for a long while. After all the noise of their adventures, sometimes the silence was nice. The barren tree seemed to enjoy the silence as well.

Until one moment, without any set amount of time passing, the high elf stood up. The beach dwarf and the human looked up at him. Was it arbitrarily time to leave? Though Merle was the nature cleric, Taako seemed to have more of a sense for these things, at least with this tree.

But instead of a soft-spoken indication to move on, he put on a wide, buck-toothed smile, and large fuzzy boots magically appeared on his feet.

“I don’t know about you two losers, but I’m gonna crunch some motherfuckin’  _leaves_.”

The other two sat wide-eyed and stunned as the elf jumped high up in the air and stomped on the fallen leaves. The crunch was like he’d stepped on fantasy Doritos - a crisp and sharp noise that was almost orgasmic to the ear.

After the first stomp, Magnus immediately rushed in. He took the slow and sensual approach, letting his foot roll from his heel down to his toe with each step, shivering and giggling at the crackles.

The smallest Reclaimer had another idea in mind. He summoned Wind Wall and piled up over half the leaves into a mound before catapulting himself in.

The boys played in the dead leaves for as long as they sat in silence before. It wouldn’t have been as long if Magnus hadn’t issued a challenge to crunch  _every single leaf_. Magnus wasn’t going to fail a self-proposed challenge. Merle wasn’t going to back down either. Taako simply didn’t want the good leaves to go to waste. So they crunched.

All that was left was the barren tree and hundreds of thousands of foliage bits, scattered into little bits and all stomped out. Just as when the IPRE crew arrived in the dimension, the centerpiece of Goldcliff was more lifeless after the boys visited. But at least this time, the graves were for the leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first TAZ fic - if you could, let me know how I did!


End file.
